Iceland just turned 100 years old – here are all the things it's accomplished before other nations

July 18, 1918, the document proclaiming Iceland’s sovereignty was signed. To honor the event that led to Iceland’s independence the Althing met at Thingvellir national park on Wednesday, where it was founded in the year 930.

The Althing is one of the world’s first parliaments, and since then Iceland’s boasting rights of ‘firsts’ has grown quite long. Here’s a summary of a more comprehensive one found on Guide to Iceland:

Ad

1. Iceland is home to the original geyser, Geysir.

Th Great Geysir on Iceland has been active 10,000 years and is the first geyser to be described in a printed source. Therefore, subsequent descriptions of geysers used the same word.

That’s about 500 years before Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. While Erik Röde discovered Greenland, his son Leif Eriksson made it all the way to Newfoundland. Archeologists have even found a Norse settlement from around the year 1000.

3. 1935 - Iceland became the first country to adopt a modern abortion policy.

Although this may be disputed, Iceland's policy is arguably the first modern policy that lasted.

Ad

4. 1980 – Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became the first female in the world to be elected president.

President Vigdis Finnbogadottir with Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands at Rotterdam Airport 1985.

Rob C. Croes (ANEFO) / GaHetNa (Nationaal Archief NL)

While there have been earlier female heads of state and even presidents, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was the first to be democratically elected. She was Iceland’s head of state for 16 years.

5. Iceland was the first country to recognize the independence of a load of countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Montenegro and Croatia.

Among Western countries, Iceland was also the first to recognize Palestine as a country.

6. 2009 – Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became the world’s first openly homosexual head of government.

Prime Minister of Iceland Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir and the Prime Minister of Norway Jens Stoltenberg at the UK Nordic Baltic Summit, 20 January 2011.

7. 2009 – Iceland became the first country to force McDonald’s out of business.

New legislation requires companies with 25 or more employees to pass audits in order to receive an equal pay certification, or risk fines. The World Economic Forum consistently ranks Iceland as having the least gender gap in the world.

2. In 2008, Iceland’s men’s national handball team made it the first country with a population under one million to win an Olympic medal in a team sport. In 2017, the men’s national football team made Iceland the smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup. The women's national football team is currently ranked 18th best in the world by FIFA - the men's team was ranked 19th in 2017.

3. Iceland produces the most green energy per capita in the world. Thanks to an abundance of hydroelectric and geothermal power, almost all energy in Iceland is green. That’s a good thing, because Iceland also has the highest consumption of electricity per capita.